Never All At Once
by Twilight L Xari
Summary: A series of glimpses into Dan and Rorschach's relationship. Part 2: It's important to have friends. And only someone cut out to be a very good friend will refrain from laughing at you.
1. Meeting

Hollis had been right when he'd warned him that it would be different than what he expected - not as easy, not as glamorous - but Dan found he didn't mind much. He couldn't say he felt comfortable walking through dark alleys at night, but when he got home, he felt like he'd accomplished something real, like he'd made a difference, and that made it well worth feeling a little out of place.

Hollis had also warned him that he'd be tested. "They'll know you're green, and they'll try to take you out before you can get too good," he'd said. "You've got to watch your back."

Daniel didn't really understand what he meant until he'd been out on the streets for almost two weeks. He didn't see it coming. One minute he was running into a dark alley to stop what sounded like a mugging, and the next he was surrounded by the biggest crowd of thugs he'd ever encountered, and they didn't look friendly. Judging by the assortment of crowbars and bats and knives he could see, they weren't there to chat.

_This_ was what Hollis had meant when he told him that he needed to watch his back, he realized. He just as quickly realized that the odds of him getting killed within the next ten minutes were good, and that everyone in attendance knew it.

He went into the fight with the reckless abandon of a man who knows that he is doomed. He was against a dumpster, looking down the barrel of a pistol and trying desperately to figure out how to disarm his opponent, when another fight broke out at the edge of the gang. The man wielding the gun glanced away to look, and that was all the distraction Dan needed. A chop to the wrist sent the gun flying, a swift right to the jaw put him back a few steps, and a solid kick to the chest finished the fight, slamming him into the man behind him and knocking them both to the ground in a senseless, undignified heap.

The rest of the gang, smelling defeat, ran for it, leaving Dan alone in the alley. Well, alone save for the bodies on the ground and the dark figure that stood back surveying them.

That must have been who had saved his ass, Dan realized. "Thanks for that," he said, looking from the unconscious heaps on the ground to the mystery man. "They would've had me if it wasn't for you."

The man grunted and lifted his head to look at him. Daniel was immediately struck by the mask he was wearing - he could see swirling black on white even in the dim light. It covered his face entirely, and he couldn't help but wonder how the hell you could see through a mask like that.

"Would've been wrong to let them kill you," the man growled. Then he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat, turned, and walked away. "Need to be more careful," he called over his shoulder. Then he was gone, vanished into the night.

* * *

As it turned out, Hollis didn't know any more about the man with the inkblot mask than Dan did. And when he didn't reappear, Dan put him out of his mind and focused on fighting crime. Apparently he'd passed his street test, because he didn't encounter any more gang setups. Not that anyone seemed too afraid of him - he still didn't have much respect, but he had a place, it seemed.

If nothing else, the experience had taught him the value of watching his back. He was less trusting, more aware of his surroundings. He found himself stopping and looking around on deserted streets, certain he'd heard someone, even though there wasn't a soul in sight.

"I think I'm getting paranoid," he told Hollis one evening.

His mentor just laughed. "Of course you are. But it's not paranoia if someone's really out to get you, now is it?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin that night when a trash can tipped over with a loud _clang_ in the silence of a dark alley. He spun around, eyes probing the darkness, but saw nothing. "Who's there?"

A moment later, a loud yowl echoed around the alley.

A cat. The Nite Owl was being stalked by a cat. It was embarassing, with more than a touch of irony. He turned and stalked out of the alley. At least Hollis would get a kick out of it.

Despite the unmasking of the feline felon, however, the feeling of being followed lingered. Once or twice he thought he heard footsteps, but he ignored them. He was probably hearing his own footsteps echoing, or else it was another goddamn cat. If there was someone following him, he would've -

"Still not watching your back."

For the second time that night, Dan started and whirled around to confront whoever had spoken. "It's you," he realized, startled.

The inkblots on the mask swirled into a new pattern as the man looked at him, just as calm as he'd been the last time Dan had seen him. "Still not being careful. Might get killed next time if you're not careful."

Dan stared. "What are you doing here?"

"Saw you come down here. Wanted to see if you were more vigilant now. Aren't."

That was brutal honesty in those incomplete sentences. He'd been stupid - getting scared of a cat didn't mean he shouldn't worry about anything else. Pride could get him killed out here.

But that didn't make it sting any less. "You don't need to check up on me. I'm doing fine."

"Hurm."

"Who are you, anyway?" Dan asked, unable to contain the question. It had been bothering him since the first time he'd seen him.

The ink twisted into a new pattern as he considered. "Rorschach."

Rorschach. He'd never heard of him before. Not in the news, not from Hollis, not from criminals. "How long have you been doing this?"

"Long enough." The voice was just as unreadable as the mask.

* * *

"Remember how I said I've been feeling like I was being followed?" Dan asked the next time he went to visit Hollis.

"Mmhm." Hollis didn't look up from the automobile magazine he was perusing.

"Well, I found out who's been following me."

That got Hollis's attention, at least a bit. "Have you?" he asked. "And who was it?"

"It's the guy with the inkblot mask I told you about a few weeks ago. He calls himself Rorschach."

Hollis nodded. "So you've found yourself another mask," he commented. "It's good to know that the future of crimefighting isn't all on your shoulders." He smiled when he saw the slightly hurt look on Dan's face. "That's not an insult, Danny-boy. You can't be everywhere at once."

Finally, Daniel was forced to tell him that he had to be going. "I don't want patrol to start without me," he said, pulling on his coat.

Hollis smiled. "Go knock some heads together," he told him. "And say hello to Rorschach for me."

Dan didn't ask him why he was so sure that he'd see the man again. Later, when he was breaking up a gang fight, he retreated a step and found another back against his, and somehow it didn't surprise him.

"Thanks for the backup," he said after the fight, surveying the unconscious bodies sprawled on the pavement.

"Hrm."

They spent the rest of Dan's patrol walking side by side, and the silence between them was the conversation of men who have a job to do.

* * *

Dan's basement was full of stuff. There was a niche in one wall where he kept his Nite Owl costume, but there was also a workbench against the opposite wall that was covered in drafts and wrenches and parts. The bulk of the floor was occupied with a half-built machine, its owl-esque windows empty and staring. It was supposed to be an airship, but at the moment it looked more like an oddly-shaped boat, or perhaps a submarine.

He had just finished pulling on his costume and was putting his goggles into place over his eyes when he realized that the ship's huge round eyes weren't what he felt watching him. Goggles on, he looked for the movement he knew he'd seen.

"Rorschach?"

"Nite Owl." He was standing just where the abandoned subway tunnel connected to the basement. Dan almost couldn't see him.

"What are you doing here?" He had to admit, he was a bit unnerved. If Rorschach had found this place, then he must have followed him back from patrol some night, and Dan hadn't even noticed. He hadn't thought he was quite so oblivious.

Rorschach shifted out of the shadow of the tunnel. "Got a tip. Drug deal in abandoned warehouse near port. Need to eliminate both supplier and distributor."

It took Dan a moment to realize that Rorschach seemed to want him as backup on this. Why else would he show up in his basement and tell him this. "Alright, I'm game," he said.

"Will give details on the way," Rorschach said, turning and heading back down the tunnel.

Dan vaulted over the railing and jogged after him, catching up and walking shoulder to shoulder with him down the edge of the tunnel, feeling almost as though that was how it had always been.


	2. Friendship

He wasn't sure exactly how it happened. They had eased into a partnership so easily that neither of them seemed to notice. After their first successful drug bust, Rorschach had continued to appear in his basement, without any pressing reason. Dan hadn't questioned it - he'd just gone out and patrolled, shoulder to shoulder with Rorschach, as though that was how they'd always done things.

One day when he went to visit Hollis, Dan found the ex-vigilante sitting at the kitchen table, perusing yesterday's morning paper. When Daniel stepped into the room, he grinned and flipped to the back of the paper. "Congratulations, Danny-boy," he said. When he saw the look of confusion on his face, he held out the paper to him.

When he took it, Dan saw what Hollis was talking about. "Drug dealer sentenced, vigilante pair aid in arrest," declared an article on the back page. It was accompanied by a mug shot of the man he and Rorschach had captured several nights ago.

"You're on the radar, son," Hollis said cheerfully as Dan handed the paper back. "Both you and your partner. From the description, I'm guessing he's your buddy Rorschach."

Dan nodded and sat down across the table from him. "Yeah. We've been patrolling together since the bust. It makes a difference, having somebody watching your back."

Hollis considered that for a moment. "You know, none of us old-timers ever managed to make partnerships work. We could never get along, and we'd trip over each other." Then he smiled. "But you might just be able to make it work, Danny-boy. I'll be be expecting updates on this."

* * *

Patrol that night was rough; unusually so. By the time they'd made their customary loop through the city and gotten back to the warehouse, Dan was wiped. It was difficult to tell, but he also noticed that Rorschach had less energy than usual, though he seemed to be doing his damnedest not to show it.

"Hey, Rorschach," Dan said before his partner could disappear off to wherever he went during the day.

"Hm."

Dan suspected that was more of a question than a statement, but it had no energy behind it all. "Want to come inside, grab a cup of coffee before you go home?"

The blots gave Dan the impression that Rorschach...well, he couldn't tell what he was thinking, really. He still had no idea what made the ink move, so what was going on underneath was a mystery to him. It looked a bit like large Swiss cheese at the moment. Or perhaps some oddly-shaped clouds. And it looked like it was becoming some sort of bat now...

God, he was tired. And also staring, which was definitely not polite.

"Need to be getting back to apartment to get some sleep. Work starts in a few hours." Rorschach nodded tersely to him, then turned and walked away. "Be seeing you."

It occurred to him later, as he was stripping off his uniform, that he might've overstepped his bounds. Rorschach had never given any indication that he wanted a friend outside of their patrols. Hell, he'd probably been offended by the idea somehow.

Well, he always had Hollis.

* * *

"You got a life outside of bein' Nite Owl?" Hollis asked him the next time Dan went over to visit. "Youngster like you must have better things to do than visit an old coot like me."

Dan laughed. "Are you trying to get rid of me?" he asked, only half joking.

"Nah, of course not. I just wanted to make sure you weren't blowing off whatever it is you kids do these days just to come see me."

"Well, I have a couple of buddies from college, but we don't do much together." Now that he thought about it, he realized that he didn't really have any close friends, other than Hollis...

"Got a girlfriend?" Hollis pressed.

"No." He'd never really gotten past that awkward teenage stage when it came to the opposite sex - although he was only twenty, so the awkwardness probably wouldn't last - but most women seemed to find it a bit of a turn-off.

"You need some friends, son," Hollis said, shaking his head. "Being Nite Owl's important, but you've gotta have some perspective, otherwise you'll forget who you're trying to protect. You'll get swallowed up by the dark side of life, and _that_," he said with finality, "will kill you in the end."

* * *

By November, it was cold. Freezing cold. Dan was rapidly getting in the habit of getting home, peeling off his uniform, putting on warm clothes, and having a cup of coffee before taking a hot shower and going to bed.

Rorschach, unlike Dan, seemed to be oblivious to the cold. There was no indication that he even felt it. Dan couldn't understand how he did it.

After about a week of freezing his hiney off in his thin uniform, Dan had paused his work on his 'Owl-Ship' - the name he'd given the machine that was growing in his basement - to work on designing an addition to his costume that might actually retain some heat. He considered making it the same color as his existing cape, but decided against it. In the snow, brown wouldn't exactly blend in. White would. And white also put him in mind of a Snowy Owl, which he figured would factor well into his trend of dorky owl-themed costuming. (He was aware that his costume was dorky. He had decided to be proud of that fact rather than ashamed.)

His first test-run of the Snow Owl suit took place just after Thanksgiving. It was snowing out when he headed through the tunnel and out of the warehouse to meet Rorschach. His partner was a bit late showing up, which gave him ample opportunity to observe that yes, the Snow Owl suit really _did_ keep him nice and warm in the snow.

"Nite Owl," said a voice behind him, and Dan turned to see Rorschach, who was still clad in his seasonless trench and fedora. The blots on his face were smaller tonight, but they seemed to grow and twist into completely unfamiliar patterns as he took in his partner's attire. "What is...?" He gestured to the cape.

"It's a new part of my uniform, so I don't freeze every night," Dan explained. He got the feeling that the new patterns blooming on Rorschach's face meant that he was trying not to laugh. "I modeled it after a snowy owl, since white matches the snow and fits the owl theme."

"Hrm." It's a less toneless noise than usual, and Dan doesn't know quite what to make of it. "Glad you finally realized spandex retains heat poorly," he said after a moment, then headed off down the street with his usual lack of warning, leaving Dan to catch up.

* * *

The night was uneventful, though cold. Even with his new cape, Dan could feel the chill sinking into him. He couldn't imagine how Rorschach could stand it, even with his collar flipped up to keep out the wind. He wasn't shivering, not even _trying_ to keep himself warm, but he had to be freezing. Dan didn't know how he could do it.

"Do you want to come in for some coffee?" Dan asked when they found themselves back at the warehouse. He'd gotten shot down the last time he'd offered, yes, but that was ages ago, and he couldn't stand imagining his partner freeze any longer.

There was a moment of thoughtful silence. "Possibly unsafe to fraternize outside of patrol," he said, but the tone of voice left some room for argument, as if to add, _but perhaps I am cold enough to be persuaded_.

Well, Dan certainly wasn't above trying persuasion. "Come on, man, what's the harm? You've gotta be freezing; at least come in and warm up a bit before you go home."

"...I suppose possible harm is minimal," he conceded after several long seconds. Dan smiled.

* * *

It wasn't until they were under the bright fluorescent lighting of his kitchen that Dan realized exactly how filthy Rorschach was. Perhaps his trench was tan? Or had been once? And to his surprise, Rorschach's pants appeared to be purple and pinstriped, which he'd never noticed out in the dark.

Dan had had little choice but to leave his suit on (not only was spandex bad at retaining heat, you also couldn't exactly wear anything underneath, and he didn't want to scandalize Rorschach), but he'd shed his new cape and pushed his cowl back once they'd gotten into the kitchen. From the eyes he could feel fixed on him from across the room, Rorschach was scandalized enough by that alone.

There was a period of awkward silence as the coffee brewed. Once it was done, Dan poured two mugs and handed one to Rorschach. "Do you want sugar with that?" he asked as his partner rolled up his mask and took a sip, apparently not caring that it was still scalding hot.

"Fine like this."

He took that as a no. That didn't stop him from getting some for himself, though, unwrapping a cube and plopping it in his coffee.

Silence reigned for another few minutes, then Rorschach set the mug down by the sink, pulling his mask back into place. "Should be getting home," he said, flipping his collar up. "Thanks for the coffee."

"No problem. You're welcome any time," Dan said.

And then he was gone.


End file.
